Pocket-Sized Hearts
by irrie
Summary: "What is your liking?" I asked, not thinking. Her eyes narrowed and she flashed a grin at me, "Wouldn't you like to know?"


This is a work of fiction based loosely on characters from Attack On Titan. I do not own these characters. This is set in an alternative universe in the modern day.  
Work is entirely unbeta'd, so please excuse mistakes. I will tend to them in time.

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_Pocket-Sized Hearts._

I often like to think that selfishness is a good trait to have. I've argued over it before, and rarely do those I talk to agree with me. However, I don't exactly concern myself with their opinions, and therefore the entire previous statement might as well have been null and void. But truly, I'm here to tell you a story about someone who took the selfish nature in my heart and turned it around- someone who was able to make me care about someone other than myself. Now, I still think it's good to be selfish. I just add on to that fact that I also believe in doing good for others, because love can come to you in odd ways at odd times, and if you aren't aware of its existence, you just might miss it.

Summer break always bored me. It was always the same. Hot as balls weather, too many guys going shirtless, everyone posting bikini pictures that might as well have been nudes on Facebook. I preferred to sit inside and draw, because that's what aspiring artists like me do. We don't socialize. We draw. And draw. And write stories. And draw stories. And draw some more. We draw on everything, from the church handouts we never actually fill out to the grocery lists, driving our parents mad.

Now this was the first summer I had ever had my driver's license, and most people would think that is pretty exciting, but to be completely honest, driving scared me a lot and I didn't have a car, so I didn't get to experience the awe inspiring "freedom" I had so often heard about. So, it should come as no surprise that as school approached the horizon of the time line of my life, I looked both forward to it and dreaded it. There's something to be said for a place where you simultaneously feel trapped and free at the same time, but I guess I'm just not sure how to say it.

I walked onto campus for the first time that year and observed the chaos of it all beginning again, eased only by the knowledge that by the next year, I wouldn't be there. Following the lines, I weaved in and out of peers that I knew, but didn't really know. I took a picture for my last student ID card, looking quite hideous as always, but there' was really not much I could do to change it. School pictures always suck. Grey tables and blue lockers and hallways and all of the same faces blurred past me as I attempted to make it through the process in record time.

My schedule was short due to it being senior year and I could almost taste the delicious ramen lunches I was going to be able to eat at home every day as I trekked to my first class. The teacher gave the same speech as the next few classes. I only really cared about my art class, so I sort of slept through all of the ones leading up to that one. It was my last class, thankfully.

I walked through the familiar doorway and greeted my teacher, who said nothing to me other than "I want to see more than a few sketchbooks of life drawings and character building and whatever else your weird ass brain thought up to draw on my desk by the end of the week." I always appreciated his input, truly.

The day took a turn from the norm right at this point, because as I went to seat myself in the only comfortable chair in the room (which, I might add, had been claimed as mine practically since freshman year), I found that someone had already taken it: an unfamiliar someone. With a hella cute nose and big blue eyes and silky blonde hair and oh my god if you think I'm talking about some little boy you are so wrong because this girl was a fucking babe. Doki, man. Doki.

She must have noticed my blatant staring, because she looked back at me with a strangely sweet face and asked, "I'm sorry, we aren't being assigned seats so I just thought I'd take this comfy one...is it yours?"

I wasn't about to break my normal demeanor that my other classmates had learned to respect just because she was cute, so I nodded to her and let out a, "Sure is. Scram, newcomer." I thought for sure she would despise me and never talk to me after that, but she just scooted over one seat and smiled at me. Fuck, I was never going to get any portfolio development done if she was going to smile like that every time I was in here. This was a curve-ball school had never thrown me. I didn't know how to handle nice people. I didn't want to. I wanted to sit alone and draw and be revered and feared and avoided because that was how I coped with the knowledge that I was rude and self-centered and nonetheless extremely talented.

So, I just sort of kept my blank face and sat down next to her in my comfortable chair, pulling out a sketchbook I had nearly finished during my last week of summer and began to doodle. When the face I drew began to resemble this new girl, I slammed the book shut and reclined back in the chair. My teacher wouldn't expect anything of me today, plus he would be happy with the amount of drawing I did over the summer. I might as well tackle the task of either befriending or scaring off the blondie.

I turned to face her, only to find her sketching as well. As soon as she noticed me turning to look at her drawings, she shut her book and tucked some hair behind her ear in a nervous gesture.

"What, you're not going to let me see?" I questioned.

"No way!" she replied simply. I was completely struck by the utter audacity of her tone and choice of words, because no one spoke to me like that other than my internet friends who knew me well enough to get away with some sass.

"Umm...okay. I'm Ymir. Who're you, miss 'too-good-to-show-you-my-sketches'?"

"I'm Christa. Christa Lenz. I'm new, obviously. There's reasoning behind me being here, but I'm not sure if you really want to hear, so I won't start blabbing my life story. I take it you're rather good at art?"

Her strange understanding of my lack of caring for other people's lives surprised me, so I reasoned to commit to further banter. "I guess," I answered, shrugging, "I mean, I've won contests and the teacher has actually asked me for art advice even though he's professional, so I wouldn't consider myself too horrible. And I actually wouldn't mind hearing your life story. Life stories are interesting, you know?"

"Oh I'm sure you're fantastic. And I'm also sure you think life stories are interesting. But there's a lot of legalities wrapped up in mine, so I'm not in a position to spill any info. I appreciate the sentiment though."

Well, she and I went on like this for the remainder of the period, and I found myself not hating her as much as I thought I would. Which was almost worse, because it forebode a future of unrequited love. Either way, she was dazzling and kind and short and sassy all at the same time. She was an actual pocket-sized goddess, to be completely honest. As we parted from class, she smiled and waved, and I cracked a grin in return. This was going to be a long year.

Over the next few weeks, she and I continued to chat. She still refused to show me any of her artwork, usually without any reason, but my teacher spoke very highly of her. I almost didn't want to see how good she was because it would surely lead to a bit of self-loathing and insecurity on my end.

One day I walked into class and she wasn't there. When I actually felt sad about it, I realized just how royally fucked I was. Nothing quite like having a huge crush on the mysterious-transfer-student-straight-girl. I felt like a walking, talking shoujo-ai protagonist. Life's a real struggle when you're me.

Towards the end of class I realized that I could just check her folder to see the art she always kept from me. I knew it would be a dishonest act, but I had never concerned myself with the morality of my less-than-honest actions before. Therefore, I elected to take a sneak peek.

Bad decision.

She was incredible.

I thought I was talented. I was wrong. This girl could draw like no other. She might as well have been shipped straight off to Disney from that moment. Of course! She wasn't at school so she must've been discovered by the artistic greats and brought in to view all the super hush hush studio projects. Yep, that was it. She was cute and amazing and my life was officially over. I would never be as good as her. My entire life's plan would shatter.

I rushed out of the room as soon as the bell rang, not even bothering to yell out a goodbye to my teacher.

I walked to the bus stop that day in deep contemplation. So deep, in fact, that I nearly missed my opportunity to utilize the crosswalk for another cycle around the intersection. I sat down at the bus stop and prepped myself for the hour or so wait I would endure, pulling out my sketchbook and flipping through the utterly disappointing pages. Horrible. I quickly put away the sketchbook and decided to utilize my super awesome headphones to play some upbeat K-Pop (spirits above knew how much I needed a pick-me-up at this point). SHINee was the first to come up on shuffle. I sat back and closed my eyes, listening to the words I knew by heart but couldn't understand one bit. My mind wandered and wandered down paths I knew were lined with signs that warned "DANGER," but I couldn't change my path. Christa was on my mind and she would be until something new came around. I needed something new. She was so far out of reach I didn't even want to think about falling for her. God damn, I needed to get my mind out of the gutter. I had literally known her for a few weeks. I had never been this...easy? My brain felt like it was going to implode.

Luckily, the bus arrived early. I went straight home and took a much needed nap.

The next day, she was back. Slightly sniffly and looking miserable, but there in one piece regardless, and without an internship to Disney. I allowed myself a sigh of relief. She had saved my comfy chair for me, though she didn't have to, I'm sure she just thought it was nice. Why did she have to be nice?

"Sorry for being gone yesterday," she managed to say (and with a smile!) through sniffles, "head colds are really not my thing."

"I doubt they're anyone's thing, but hey, at least you manage to have one and look damn cute at the same time," I said back to her. She had gotten used to my flirtatious behavior, though I'm sure she took it as a big joke. I was being dead serious.

She laughed in response, though it didn't look very easy to laugh with her sickness. I smiled at her pitifully and began drawing. When she got up to retrieve papers from her folder, I remembered my actions from the day before. Guilt and worry and nausea immediately took hold of me. As she returned to her seat adjacent to mine, I tried to look as innocent as possible.

"Ymir?"

"Yes...?"

"You look like you're about to puke. I hope I didn't already make you sick!"

"No! No...I..." Fuck it, she was going to find out sooner or later. "I may have done some snooping while you were gone. You're really incredible. Like, super duper amazing and I may have to replace my dream of marrying you with a dream of marrying your art. Is that legal?"

She went beat red and then started laughing. When she recovered, she responded, "It's alright, I thought that you might do that when I was lying around like a child yesterday. I've already come to terms with it. I'm really glad you're impressed! I've been working on my anatomy and combining styles for years, and I think I'm finally happy with where I'm at! I just hope colleges will accept me."

"They will, don't be stupid."

"And don't you dare back out of our marriage! I've been putting so much effort into the planning!"

I laughed bitterly at that, because as cute as it was, I knew I would think about it later and get sad that she didn't mean it. She always made me so happy, I felt like I could fly. As soon as I was alone again, though, her words wiuld come back to drown me. I was such an emotional whale, my god. However, her voice broke through my small moment of mourning-

"Seriously, look at how cute I'd be in this dress! And you'd look great in this one," she said, handing me her sketchbook, which was littered with drawings of herself in different dresses and myself in one sleeker looking one she must have fallen in love with at first sight because I didn't see any more experimenting going on with drawings of me. I looked...feminine. And pretty. And yet I still retained a smirk. She had memorized so much of me in such a short time. I felt my face get hot.

"Damn girl, you're cute as fuck. And I feel so honored to be in your sketchbook. Honestly. Holy shit. Holy shit, I need like...a tattoo of your autograph on my ass. I feel so honored."

"If you insist," she sighed, whipping out a signature on a blank sheet of printer paper. She handed it to me, "take that to your local tattoo artist, but I have to see the finished product."

"Getting a little forward, are we?"

She stuck her tongue out at me, but before we could continue, our teacher walked over and started screeching at us about productivity and how we would never be hired or accepted into college if we didn't increase the amount of art we were producing. Produce produce produce!

That night I scrolled through Facebook on my phone, stalking Christa. She had very few pictures and even fewer posts, but just looking at her face made me smile. I feared more than anything the day she would find out about me, about my family, about what kind of person I really was. She had already accepted me so blindly and she was so kind. I was deathly afraid of losing that. It seemed out of character to even imagine her shunning me, but I suppose I just really, really didn't want to have to find a way to cope with my little pocket sized heart breaking.

The next day was a Friday, but we had school off, so I didn't plan on seeing Christa. I didn't get invited to parties, so seeing her somewhere like that was impossible. I didn't really see myself leaving my house, so even the slim chance of her living somewhere near and seeing her around the neighborhood was too slim for my liking, so I stayed in and watched anime. I felt lame, but such is the life.

Around 2:00, I got a text from Christa. I actually rolled off my bed and hit my head on the night stand, I was so excited. My head hurt, but the text lulled the pain away. She was inviting me to go to a party. Holy shit, a party. Wasn't I just thinking about parties and how I don't get invited to them? She wanted me to go with her since she got invited, but she didn't want to show up alone. And big football boys might try to take advantage of her, and even though she assured me she could probably take care of herself, she had decided it was better to be safe than sorry and bring me along because she was absolutely certain I could kick ass. She also said she needed a ride and apologized profusely for it, but I was happy to oblige. I just needed to find out a way to acquire a car before 7 PM. I wasted a few hours on my laptop, trying to stay calm, then rushed to gather the necessities. I was supposed to be at Christa's to get ready for the party at 8, and it turns out she lived a ways away.

Now, my mother is a drunk. And I don't talk about this to many people other than my internet friends, because I absolutely do not want any pity or officials knocking on my door. I deal with it in my own way. My dad walked out on her because of her drinking and now I only see him once a month. She shuns me for my sexuality, constantly reprimanding me for being disgusting, but she also expects me to pass all my classes and go to college. She is a living, breathing contradiction. However, I take advantage of her commonly sedentary state to steal the car whenever I can, and this was one of those lucky nights. She was passed out on the couch, empty bottles all around. I found the keys and left her a note. God knows she probably wouldn't wake up until after I was back, but it was better to be safe than sorry. I locked the door behind me and threw my stuff into the car.

The drive to Christa's was quite confusing, especially in the utter darkness, but I managed to get there no later than fashionably late. She had texted me on the drive, so I read it before I walked to the door. She warned me that I was walking into a strict Catholic household, not a chill Catholic household, and that I shouldn't cuss or I might get kicked out. And also to not mention that we were going to a party. She was telling her parents that we were getting ready for a "girls' night out" with some friends. I laughed to myself, knowing I could play the perfect straight child easily, having been forced to whenever I was around my mom's family unless I wanted to get beat. This would be a piece of cake.

Christa greeted me at the door and introduced me to her parents, who, to be completely honest, seemed nice enough. Her dad looked slightly wary of me, but her mom offered me biscuits, so I was perfectly alright with whatever he thought. Biscuits are fucking delicious. After the small snack, we went up to her room. I put all of my mental will into keeping my brain out of the disgusting gutter it so often resided in whenever I was around her. The bed made it extra challenging.

All in all, she had an extremely well designed, large house, colonial style in the build. It looked like no one lived in it, everything was so neat. Her room was super cute, but super clean. There were no posters pinned to the walls; everything was in a frame and hung properly. Her closet was a huge walk-in closet, and I lamented my jealousy.

"Alright," Christa began, "time to get you fixed up and ready to party."

"But I thought you loved me the way I was," I joked.

"Shut up, we'll start with clothes."

I was much, much to tall to fit into anything of hers besides certain shirts, due to the sad fact that she had boobs and I was impossibly flat, so I dumped what I had brought onto her bed and watched her rake through them with critical eyes. She threw quite a few pairs of jeans out until deciding on a tight pair of black jeggings, throwing them at me and then diving into her closet. I held the pants, unsure of whether I should change right there or if she would be weird about it.

As she emerged from the closet, she set out a few shirts and told me to get changed so she could test out each one. I stripped down carefully, trying to not seem too comfortable or too awkward. She didn't exactly watch, so I guess there wasn't anything to worry about. I got the jeans on and looked at her quizzically.

"Alright, lose the shirt. Don't be embarrassed, I already know you have like zero boobs. I just want to pick whichever one makes you appear to have at least one boobs."

"So mean," I commented, but removed my shirt nonetheless. I felt my brain slipping into my mental gutter, so I threw myself into the task of trying on each shirt wholeheartedly. The one Christa liked the most was a long sleeve crop top, but it made my boobs look great. I was skinny enough to pull it off, she decided, so she said I could borrow it for the night. The rest of the outfit I had brought were Vans and a beanie, which I surely thought she would veto, but she smiled when I put them on, saying only to leave my hair down before notifying me that I looked ready to party.

She got dressed in her closet, unfortunately, but she came out looking like a goddess. And by goddess, I mean a cute little punk rock goddess who could sing you to sleep and kick your ass all at the same time. The grey Brand New tee left the curves of her hips a mystery, her jeans hugged her thighs and made her ass look fantastic, and her converse added just a touch of casual. She swept her blonde hair up into a loose ponytail as she walked forward. I must have been gawking, because she winked at me and I felt my face flare up. My dark skin was most certainly a blessing.

Up next on the to-do list was makeup. I had never been one for makeup, and her face always seemed perfect, so I hadn't really considered this as a possibility. She must have known what she was doing, though, so she sat me down and got to work. Again. She was so focused, but her face was also close to my face and I tried to play it cool to keep my heart from beating straight out of my chest.

"I'm going to just completely skip over your skin because I don't have your skin tone and also I wouldn't want to cover up those freckles," she told me, breaking out the eye makeup. She started with mascara, cursing me for having naturally long, dark eyelashes, then added minimal (but rather bright) eyeshadow, finishing with some impressive work with liquid eyeliner. I looked in the mirror and barely recognized myself.

"I'm hot," I stated bluntly.

"Extremely," she hummed, nodding. "All that's left is lips. I should probably stick to more neutral tones for you...hmm. You don't mind me doing this, right?"

"If I did, I would've said something. Also, I'd mess it up if I tried."

She came at me with a sheer, slightly sparkly neutral tone lip gloss, telling me to make a pouty face. I did so, and she applied the gloss. It was one of the strangest feelings I'd ever experienced, but I was probably reading into it way, way too much. Once she was done, she told me to rub my lips together to even it out. Her fingers wiped away anything I had spread too far, and I closed my eyes at the feeling. I was so ridiculous.

"All done!" she exclaimed. "Wow you're going to have boys lining up to kiss you just to get closer to that pretty face."

I rolled my eyes, then watched her finish her makeup. She put on way more than usual (although I suppose we both did), but it looked beautiful. Her eyes popped even more electric blue in contrast with the dark eyeliner.

"Alright, now we look like sluts, which is hilarious. Let's cover up so my parents let us out of the house."

"Deal. Do you have a turtleneck? I think any collarbones showing might be a no-no."

"Shut up. We're just grabbing jackets."

When we arrived at the party, I thought to ask who had invited her. Granted, we had been too busy singing along to Disney soundtracks beforehand.

"Oh, it was Reiner Braun. He's the quarterback I think? I don't know much about football."

"Damn," I gasped, "are you secretly popular? He's probably the heartthrob of the entire school."

"Eh, he's too much muscle for my liking," she shrugged.

"What is your liking?" I asked, not thinking.

Her eyes narrowed and she flashed a grin at me, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

I groaned and got out of the car.

I will admit, I'd never been to a party before this. I don't know what I expected. Probably a lot of annoying people, but to be honest, it wasn't that bad. Being with Christa made it borderline fun. Reiner was a chill guy, if a bit of a drunk, but he welcomed me with the same shitfaced grin which he welcomed my smaller counterpart. The taller dude next to him, whom Christa told me was in her English class, was named Bertholdt. He looked sweaty and nervous. Poor guy. As we proceeded to make our way deeper into the house, it got increasingly crowded and there were so many people I didn't know that I started to get a little pissed. Christa was smiling and waving and people were doting on her, and since I was an insufferable asshole, I glared at them as we passed by. We finally ran into some people I did somewhat know: Sasha Braus and Connie Springer. Sasha and I were acquainted in middle school, where she mooched off of the lunches my dad made me every morning. I was going through my own issues then, so I hadn't minded. We spoke to them briefly, making small talk, until I heard a roar behind me. It was none other than Jean Kirschtein making his entrance. I used the distraction to pull Christa forward to a space where I had enough room to breathe.

"Are you okay?" she questioned, concerned.

"Yeah, I've just never been to one of these things, and there's a lot of people and I don't want to punch anyone. Are you cool with getting drinks? I think it'll help me chill out." I was being brutally honest with her because I was genuinely uncomfortable with the situation.

"Of course! I didn't know you'd never been to a party before, I'm so sorry! You were just...really my only friend I felt okay inviting. I'm sorry."

"Nah, don't feel bad. Everyone's got to go to at least one party. And it won't be so bad once I have a few drinks."

"Do your parents let you drink or something?"

I didn't answer her. I just shrugged and moved towards the kitchen, hoping I would find the alcohol I sorely wished for there. I did. After snagging some beer, I made my way back to Christa, who was flirting effortlessly with Jean. Damn him and his stupid ugly horse face. I handed Christa a beer and we both took a good long swig. Nasty.

I'm not sure how many beers I had before I started mixing drinks. One of the boys, who looked almost as pissed as I probably did, was making some Jaegerbombs, so I stood around to talk to him. His name was Eren, and he was a junior at our opposing high school. He had come with his adopted sister, Mikasa, whom had been invited by Jean. He seemed especially angered at this, but I didn't want to get into that whole story, so I just thanked him for the drink and left.

Everything gets a little blurry past this point. I know I met a girl named Annie who was Reiner's cousin who had come purely to smoke and drink. She seemed chill enough, but it may have been the drugs. She didn't bother to offer me any, and I didn't ask for any. We just talked about girls, because she pointed out how cute Christa's ass was. I must have been pretty open with my thoughts on Christa, because when she left I can just remember her telling me I needed to kiss the girl while she was drunk to get it out of my system. But I couldn't bring myself to get up. I could only watch helplessly as Jean held her arm and turned up the music so he could dance with her and she looked so wasted and happy, dancing like a freak. What chance did I think I had? Not only was she beautiful, everyone loved her. She was like a ray of sunshine in everyone's life, not just mine. And she was straight and Jean, the most sought after shitstain in our school, wanted her. It made me so angry. I didn't want to know what I would do if he tried to kiss her or touch her the way I wanted to- the way I felt I deserved to. I may be a piece of shit person, but I wouldn't be a piece of shit girlfriend. Not to her.

I left. I walked out of the house and sat in my car and slept until about 4AM. At this point, I went back inside. Most of the people had left or were sleeping, so I moved silently. Reiner's backyard opened up to a trail which went to the top of a hill, so I followed the steep trail and sat there for awhile. The stars were nice and clear from that high up. I lied down and watched them, trying to name the constellations I could barely remember from my astronomy class back in Freshman year. I eventually gave up and fell asleep again. It wasn't comfortable, but my heart was heavy, so nothing could have been comfortable at that point.

I woke up again at around sunrise. It was beautiful, but I could only think of how much more beautiful it would be if Christa was there to enjoy it with me. How the colors might reflect off of her hair and how soft it would be if I could run my fingers through it, working through any tangles she may have acquired. She would be sleepy, because it was so early, and any word she would say would come out as a grumble because she would still be too asleep to speak coherently. And I would kiss her shoulder and then her cheek and then her forehead and then her nose and then her lips because she deserves to be treated like the beautiful creature she is. Myself, on the other hand...I am repulsive. I am a monster. And one day she would see that, and she would never come back to me.

I must've started crying, which was pathetic, but I was hungover so I already felt bad. I just wanted to go home. I made my way back to the house, making sure to wipe my eyes thoroughly before searching for Christa. I didn't care how many parties she had been to or what time she normally woke up at them, we were going home right then because I wasn't going to sit there any longer unable to deny my own demons their room in my head. I looked around the couches and chairs, and when she wasn't there I made my way upstairs. The first two rooms I looked in housed either sleeping couples or a bunch of friends piled in one bed. In the last room at the end of the hall, though, I found her. She was snuggled against a naked Jean with only a shirt on. I had come to terms with the probability of this occurring, though, so I set myself to the task of picking up her clothing before waking her up.

"Christa. Christa wake up."

"Hmm? What time is it?"

"I don't know, but I'm ready to go. I have your clothes."

Her eyes opened wide and she shot straight up out of bed, but not before whispering rather loudly, "Shit." Jean woke up due to her sudden movement, and looked very confused after checking his phone for the time. I silenced him before he could speak with a simple look. Christa changed very quickly for a person with a hangover. I left the room first, so that I wouldn't have to witness her saying goodbye to Jean. I was waiting for her in the car by the time she made it out of the house.

"Christ, it's cold," she muttered, stepping into the car and strapping on her seatbelt.

"Yeah."

"Can you believe that Jean fell back asleep before I could say goodbye? What an idiot."

"Yeah."

"God, I don't even remember half of last night. If I did anything embarrassing, please tell me. I'd rather hear it from you than Reiner on Monday."

"Yeah."

"What did you end up doing?"

I felt so horrific that I didn't even mind telling the truth. "I talked to a few people who weren't so bad, drank more than I have in a good while, watched you and Jean, then returned for more poison so that maybe I could die, then I slept in my car and woke up at the crack of satan's ass and walked up the hill and slept up there some more, then woke up again and got you."

She didn't respond. I glanced to the side when we were at a stop light and saw a very shocked and guilty looking Christa. I didn't bother to say any more.

"Well, I guess...I guess you know what I did," she finally stated.

The plan had been to go to my house afterwards so that her parents wouldn't see her hungover until she was fully recovered, but honestly I wasn't so sure I would be able to handle seeing her knowing all that happened and all that I could never have. I had made a commitment to her, though, so I kept it. When we walked in the house, my mom was still passed out on the couch, so I returned the keys to their original place on the counter and threw away my note. She didn't have to know we went out of the house at all. Christa didn't say anything, but the utter disarray of my household probably provided a bit of culture shock for her, considering she lived in a designer's dream. We went up the stairs to my tiny mess of a room, changed into more comfortable clothes, and proceeded to sit in silence, a generous space between our seats on my bed. I felt like I was drowning again.

I was the first to speak. "Christa, don't pity me, it's humiliating."

"I wasn't-"

"Yes, you were. I can see it on your face."

"I..." she started. I stared at her. "I'm sorry. And I'm not saying that out of pity. I guess I just barely know you. You've never really talked about yourself."

"To be fair, you hadn't said much about yourself before last night. I've had to infer a lot about you."

"I just didn't want to pry. But now I'm going to, because I'm sorry. I've been insensitive."

I ignored her apology, "What do you want to know?"

"Just tell me about yourself. Who exactly are you?"

I let that question settle in my brain for a moment. How could she ask me this? I'd been asking myself this for years and I still didn't know the answer.

"When I was in middle school, I starved myself so that my family would love me. I'd never been obese, but my parents complained that I ate too much, so one day I just stopped eating. In Freshman year, my dad left because my mom drinks too much. I see him maybe once a month. I see my mom every day, but I wish I didn't. She thinks I'm disgusting and so I hate myself. I turned to drawing in elementary school because I didn't have any real friends, so I wanted to make my own."

Christa's eyes widened and she moved closer to me so that she could lean into me. I didn't react, but the contact felt nice. For once, someone was comforting me when I was sad instead of screaming at me.

I didn't ask for any response from her, but she told me about herself anyways. "My mom isn't actually my mom. My real mom had me and kept me for awhile, but she never once talked to me. I always had maids take care of me. Then she was murdered. I saw it happen, but I only vaguely remember it and I still don't understand it. I was too young. My dad works in the government, but it's really secret, so he doesn't tell me much. The one thing he's really ever told me to do is not tell anyone my real name, or I might get killed. My stepmom is really nice, but my dad holds all of us under a strict rule. Living there is like living in a prison. Everything I do is regulated. But I suppose I don't hate myself, so it's not so bad. It's just really hard to do anything or even know myself when I don't have the freedom to."

"I'm sorry. That's really horrifying."

"I guess, but I can barely remember it. I don't even have nightmares about it."

"Yeah."

"Can I ask you why your mom thinks you're disgusting?"

I froze. I didn't want to do this. I wanted to run away. I wanted to make a cruel joke, be rude, make her leave me alone. I wanted to be alone. I was always alone. I didn't know how to be with people. But I liked her a little too much and I wanted her to know, because of the fact that I liked her. I was scared, but I blurted it out anyways.

"It's because she's homophobic. She legitimately thinks I'm from hell because I like girls."

I expected her to flinch, to move away from me, to jump up and scream at me, to recoil in horror, to treat me like a monster. But she didn't. She leaned further into me and turned to wrap her arms around me. I didn't know what to do.

"What are you doing?" I asked, panicking.

"I'm being close to you."

"Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm hungover and feeling like I need to be as close to you as possible."

I couldn't handle it for a single second more, so I jumped up and pulled away from her. She wasn't allowed to do this. She couldn't toy with me and then fuck Jean and then pretend she cared, it just wasn't fair.

"Ymir..."

"Christa, what the fuck."

"What?"

"What the fuck is your deal?" I whirled around to yell at her, "You can't just fuck Jean and then act like nothing happened. What are you? Because I'm not straight. I'm gay as fuck. Full fledged lesbian."

She looked up at me for a second, then looked down and considered my statement. "I've been raised in a house where girls love boys and boys love girls. I've been sheltered from all things gay and trans and such. The only way I am exposed to anything in this world is by going to parties. I'll tell you right now, Ymir, that I don't even know how many boys have fucked me. I literally don't know. Before I transferred here I used to go out almost every weekend with my friends. My parents were okay because they didn't know what I was doing. I lied, all the time. I got drunk and high every chance I could get, because I like losing control. I've only ever known control. I don't want it. I'd wake up on the sidewalk or in some random guy's car or in a bed I'd never seen in my life. I wanted it, I wanted to lose my control. It hurt. It hurt so good. I'm tiny. They'd slam me into the wall and fuck me until I was crying, but I still smiled because I knew what I was doing was bad. I was a secret whore."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"This is the first party I've been to after transferring here. I thought I'd be excited to be getting out. I thought I could go and lose myself again. But inside, I was scared. I was scared and I wanted you to be there because you make me feel safe. But I drank anyways, and I forgot who I was, and I lost control. Jean wasn't so bad. He didn't hurt me. But he didn't love me."

"Of course not, he only wants you for your body."

She paused. "Ymir, I don't even know what love is."

At this point, my entire body was shaking. I couldn't tell what she was saying. I was horrified that anyone could treat her like a doll. She was not a doll. I was furious and confused. I was angry that she let people treat her like that. But I wanted to comfort her. I wanted her to know that love wasn't pain. Love wasn't lust. I didn't know what love was, but I sure as hell knew it wasn't those things.

I reached for her, pulling her to stand next to me. She was shaking too. I pulled the covers down and we both slipped into bed. I played big spoon, holding her close. I kissed her hair. And we both fell asleep.


End file.
